Jimquisition: The Adblock Episode

[Cliff_m85]

I don't use Adblock, but I can see why others do. Here's how I load an Escapist video...

1) Click photo of vid I want to see.
2) Click video I want to see.
3) Sit through ad, while moving ads take place on bottom of screen and right of screen.
4) Pause video.
5) Wait for 5 minutes for video to properly load, as the ads take an ungodly amount of bandwidth.
6) Click play again.
7) Watch 80% of the video before it starts 'buffering' again due to ads swapping to a new moving ad.
8) Wait 2-4 minutes.
9) Click play again.
10) Finish video.

Me not using adblock means a ton more for you, content creators, because I have to put up with such nonsense just to watch a video on my browser. It's not about me putting a fraction of a cent in your pocket each time I watch, it means I respect you enough to put up with the atrocious advertising on certain websites. (ThatGuyWithTheGlasses = worst. Some ads are just broken and you sit there for 5 minutes until the system blips and realizes that the ad should be finished by now... and then play - pause - play - pause - play.)

 

[Andy Shandy]

All I have to say on this is that anyone that takes some sort of pride in telling someone that they Adblock someone else's content is a complete and utter arse.

I can understand a variety of reasons for using Adblock (technical problems caused by ads being a big one I can sympathize with) but people who use Adblock as some sort of dick to wave in a content creator's face can get fucked.

Spoiler: Oh, and for the mods...

It'll all be better soon =P

 

[Squintsalot]

(snipped for less clutter)

Wow. That's brutal honesty for you and I can't tell you how much I appreciate reading a post like that, in what seems like a fucking ocean of hypothetical and useless posts that permeate this site.

Brutal honesty's my middle name.

Haven't sifted through every post yet, but I was hoping someone might have taken the discussion in this direction.

 

[faefrost]

Here is the big underlying issue with Ads and the advertising model on the internet. And it isn't simply that the ads can be annoying. It's that unlike other media in which the consumer is subjected to ads, the content providers more often than not do a very very poor job of policing those ads being placed. Most consumers would happily watch the ads with minimal grumblings. They do it all the time on TV or with radio when driving etc. But those ads are not actively intrusive. Unlike Internet ads they do not cross the line and step into my space to do their own thing. They cannot change the channel on my TV. Or change the core code that is operating it. Television ads while tasteless and annoying are not delivery systems for malicious code. web ads often are. The content providers, while making a herculean effort, still do not have any degree of reasonable control over the ad sources and the ad servers. They can't evaluate or act against malicious code, or overly intrusive ads until their consumers have already been subjected to them. They don't get to make a lot of evaluation decisions before the ads run, nor do they take any responsibility for what is delivered in their names or over their sites. And that is a huge issue. If you want to subject us to ads and you want us to fully allow the ads then you need to offer some very clear very specific guarantees concerning how those ads will be presented. what they will contain. How they will impact our systems and browsers. etc. Jim you illustrate the problem that as you confess that the more people block ads the worse the ads get. The more intrusive. The more offensive. The more malicious. Well gues what. That shows the hole in the overall system. The root underlying flaw. The fact that those bad ads can still get to us is why we will often make the choice to put up blockers and leave them still born. You need the good ads to generate the revenue. We need to protect ourselves from the bad. Insure that we will not be subjected to the bad, and we will happily welcome the good.

 

[LazyAza]

I've never once considered using adblock. A few seconds of waiting or the occasional popup annoyance is a damn tiny price to pay for the endless otherwise free content I get access to. For the sites/people I do want to support more directly I do subscribe to.

For example GiantBomb.com is the greatest video game website in the world and I've been a proud supporter of them and their subscription service for the last 4 years. I hope in the future their are more alternatives to ads for content makers. Maybe if PayPal or something advances and every month or so I can easily throw a few bucks at a few different sites I frequent with minimal effort or frustration that'd be neat. I'm a content producer myself I guess, but the stuff I make money off has to be paid for up front before I even post it online as its all personalized commission work. But those who didn't pay for its creation are still seeing it for free and that kinda bugs me but eh nothing that can be done about that short of humbly asking for donations. Which doesn't work at all so its a good thing like Jim I have enough passion for my work I continue to create it regardless.

I do think the average person takes extreme advantage of content creators in the internet age, but that's less their fault and more the lack of a better system in place.

 

[WeepingAngels]

LOL, this thread is an advertising campaign for adblock. It seems that every post is telling my why I should be blocking ads.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

I
If I do not click advertisements, and if I do not buy the products, and if I do not want to subconsciously ingrain nonsensical bias, then it almost guaranteed that advertisements shown to me would not result in a profit for that company. Because of this I feel that it should not matter (in theory) for the companies running advertisements on the Escapist if I view their ads or not.

This highlights one of the biggest and most sordid problems with online advertising. The Escapist doesn't care if you buy the advertiser's products. They only care that you see the ads. Notice how they don't say "go and buy our advertiser's products" but instead say "please don't block our ads."

If this was being done in the interest of the products being advertised, then they wouldn't care if you saw the ads or not, only that you buy the products.

The root problem of all this is that the interests of the various parties involved are orthogonal. There are no truly shared interests here. You have these parties:

1. Content creator
2. Merchant (company being advertised)
3. Advertising network/agency placing ads
4. Publisher publishing content and ads
5. Audience

None of these interests completely align:

The content creator wants their work shown to the audience, and hopefully receive some compensation for it. But they don't want their content to be adversely affected by advertising or restrictions from publishers. They are not directly interested in advertising other than a means to an end.

The merchant wants to sell their product or service, and engages an advertising network to do so. However, the advertising network is in the business of selling ads, and isn't directly concerned with the sales of the company's products.

Meanwhile, the publisher generates income from selling ad views, but has no direct concern for the profits of the advertising network, particularly their revenue from other sites.

Finally, the audience doesn't care for much other than viewing content by the content creator. But they have to negotiate all those intermediaries to get that content - unless it's made available directly from the content creator (via donation, direct sales, etc). The audience's level of attachment to the content creator can lead to all these complicated negotiations such as unblocking ads, if the audience feels the content creator deserves that effort.

Bottom line: it's a big hot mess.

I think by far the most interesting dichotomy here is that between publisher and merchant. The merchant desperately wants to sell their product, but doesn't care at all about the publisher. Meanwhile, the publisher desperately wants to show the merchant's ads, but doesn't care at all about the merchant.

The most closely aligned interests in this arrangement is that between the publisher and advertising network. Which is why you end up with things like forum rules beholden to such networks.

 

[ClockworkUniverse]

So, I stopped using adblock months ago.

But since this seems like a good place to mention it, I'd just like to say this:

That Jeep ad? The one that's been on the site for ages? Spreads out and plays a video if you mouse over it for even a frame? If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.

Entirely because of that ad, I will never, under any circumstances, purchase, drive, or regard with anything but loathing, a Jeep. I kind of wonder if whatever marketing company works for Jeep actually thinks that abomination will move product, or if they just don't care.

It's, well, the sort of thing that makes people use adblock. I'm not planning to go back to it just over this, but it's astoundingly obnoxious, and I don't think the Escapist is doing itself any favors by hosting it, since in the long run, that sort of thing will almost guarantee fewer ad-viewing audience members.

 

[Trelmayas]

Yet someone comes out and straightforward says "I use Ad-Block here but this is why and i wish i didn't have to" and they get instantly moderated.

This thread isn't supposed to be a 'confession booth' for adblock users.

Discussion of the effects adblocking has on sites and site content is allowed here, this can be done without advocating or admitting to the use of said software.

People are trying to explain to you why they use adblock on this site, with the hopes that we can work together so that it's not necessary. After watching Jim's video, I put the Escapist back on my whitelist, but if the ads continue to be as hazardous and obtrusive as they once were, I may reconsider this.

I would hope those who run the Escapist would be kind enough to listen to these problems and work with us. Based on the warnings I've seen, this may not be the case.

 

[Aardvaarkman]

But how is that solely the consumer's fault? It was the creator/publisher who decided to release it for free with advertising support.

I'll have to stop you here because you've already ignored what I explicitly established.
To be blunt: If it's advertised it's not strictly free. No exception.

Advertisements are not a monetary cost, they're an opportunity cost. Both are costs to the consumer.

I didn't ignore it - I just took it as read. I was using "free" as a shorthand for "free of monetary cost" - and "ad-supported" as the cost paid.

I absolutely agree that the time spent watching an ad has value. That's why I said that it was seen as an economic benefit to release it this way rather than charge money directly.

They would not have done that unless they saw an economic benefit to releasing the content that way. The consumer would not have been able to take that content for free unless the publisher chose to release it that way.

And that's the simple solution to the ad-blocking dilemma - publishers should just charge money for their content, and not allow public ad-supported access. Problem solved.

While that's certainly an option, it's not a strict "solution" to a problem when you're just trading one cost for another.

Ah, you see, that statement was rather tongue-in-cheek.

I reduced it to a "simple" solution because of all the whining and hand-wringing over things like piracy and ad-blocking. If ad-blocking is so damaging, then why don't they just move to a non-advertising model? That would eliminate the ad-blocking problem altogether.

Because they make (or think they will make) more money with advertising (even with the existence of ad-blocking) than they would by selling with an up-front cost or subscription. If you can still make enough money despite ad-blocking, without even having to "sell" your product, then it seems that ad-blocking not that bad of a problem to have.

This is why I think attacking ad blocking is a short-sighted attempt to mask much deeper problems.

 

[TheMemoman]

All right, you got me with your fucking humble honesty... you eloquently ethical, righteous fuck... AdBlock is off for The Escapist.

You got me thinking, about minor inconveniences, fuck the the police, and how sometimes misfired rebellion can hurt others, even when the cause is righteously in the best regards for mankind. Rock The Casbah and all that jazz.

 

[Pyrian]

Hmm. Fair enough. The site deserves something given the amount of time I spend on it, and the ads do suck. The pubclub's only about 8 cents per weekday. That won't break my bank.

 

[Neta]

Why not just assume that people are going to block ads to begin with and then work around that?

Instead of saying "adblocking is bad so don't adblock" you should say "please whitelist us - here's why you should".

 

[WeepingAngels]

So, I stopped using adblock months ago.

But since this seems like a good place to mention it, I'd just like to say this:

That Jeep ad? The one that's been on the site for ages? Spreads out and plays a video if you mouse over it for even a frame? If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.

Entirely because of that ad, I will never, under any circumstances, purchase, drive, or regard with anything but loathing, a Jeep. I kind of wonder if whatever marketing company works for Jeep actually thinks that abomination will move product, or if they just don't care.

It's, well, the sort of thing that makes people use adblock. I'm not planning to go back to it just over this, but it's astoundingly obnoxious, and I don't think the Escapist is doing itself any favors by hosting it, since in the long run, that sort of thing will almost guarantee fewer ad-viewing audience members.

The server guy said that they pay 3-4 times more for ads like that. Intrusive ads are what advertisers want, people hoping to teach something to advertisers don't understand them. There is a reason ads have spread everywhere within the public eye and beyond and it isn't because consumers want to see them.

 

[Verkula]

I actually forgot that I'm using adblock for the last couple of months now, so yeah, enabled(I mean this site is enabled on it) now.

 

[ClockworkUniverse]

So, I stopped using adblock months ago.

But since this seems like a good place to mention it, I'd just like to say this:

That Jeep ad? The one that's been on the site for ages? Spreads out and plays a video if you mouse over it for even a frame? If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.

Entirely because of that ad, I will never, under any circumstances, purchase, drive, or regard with anything but loathing, a Jeep. I kind of wonder if whatever marketing company works for Jeep actually thinks that abomination will move product, or if they just don't care.

It's, well, the sort of thing that makes people use adblock. I'm not planning to go back to it just over this, but it's astoundingly obnoxious, and I don't think the Escapist is doing itself any favors by hosting it, since in the long run, that sort of thing will almost guarantee fewer ad-viewing audience members.

The server guy said that they pay 3-4 times more for ads like that. Intrusive ads are what advertisers want, people hoping to teach something to advertisers don't understand them. There is a reason ads have spread everywhere within the public eye and beyond and it isn't because consumers want to see them.

I understand that, and wasn't really expecting to convince anyone, and hey, if the Escapist gets paid more for it, that's at least a benefit on some level.

Mostly, this thread was a convenient opportunity to do a quick mini-rant on something that had been bothering me. Was pretty cathartic, actually, even if I've already devoted more time to this discussion than to that ad.